Decorative beads are frequently used in the art of jewelry making. Beads are strung on wire or other types of filament or line in order to form an aesthetically pleasing configuration.
In order to keep beads or other threaded objects in place, a technique known as crimping is used to secure beading wire. Crimping involves the crushing of a beading element, such as a malleable bead, ferrule, or tube, typically made of a malleable material such as metal, onto the wire to hold the wire in place. In an illustrative example, a wire is doubled over to form a closed loop. A malleable bead is slipped over the doubled over wire. In order to secure and hold the loop formed by the wire, the bead is crimped by a tool, such as a chain nose plier. This flattens the bead to squeeze the wire, holding it in place. This process produces a functional but unattractive bead.
Existing crimping tools perform this process by using a pair of pliers with a kidney shaped aperture or groove. The resulting crimped bead takes on the kidney shape of the aperture. As this is generally unattractive and displeasing from an aesthetic and design standpoint, the tool typically also contains a round aperture. The crimped bead is then moved to the round aperture where it is compressed again to form a more uniformly round shape.
Existing crimping tools require that the bead be first crimped in a kidney shaped aperture and repositioned to a round shaped aperture. Since the initial crimping step flattens the bead into an elongated oval, the crimped bead is usually rotated 90 degrees by the user and then compressed along the major axis of the generally elliptical crimped bead. This second compression results in a generally rounded final result. This two step process requiring the user to reset the partially crimped bead is undesirable and is potentially difficult due to the small size of the items involved. Moreover, the proper positioning of the bead element is difficult.
There is thus a need for a convenient tool that can accomplish what normally is a two step crimping process involving two separate crushing steps with the pliers in a single motion without the need to reposition the bead element.